RSS

Category Archives: Music. Movies. Media. More.

‘Beyond Watchmen’: Don’t Call It A Cash Grab.

02 Feb

There are certain things in the world nobody asked for, nobody wanted and nobody needed.

Like The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.  Like The Godfather III.   Like every Alien movie that wasn’t directed by Ridley Scott or James Cameron.  Like every Terminator sequel that wasn’t directed by James Cameron.

Like New Coke.  Like Sarah Palin as vice president.  Like a Hummer.  Like NBC’s entire fall season.

Like Before Watchmen.  DC Comics announced this week they will publish a limited series of comics based upon the Watchmen 25 years after the fact.

Before Watchmen?  There was no before Watchmen and there was no after Watchmen.  There is only Watchmen.  Alan Moore wrote it and Dave Gibbons drew it and they told the story in 12 issues and that was it.

Sure DC has about the same principle as a pimp with a stable of child prostitutes, but they aren’t trying to sell Before Watchmen to geezers like me.  They’re going after the kids who saw Watchmen the movie and never finished reading Watchmen the graphic novel.

Alan Moore: the creator who got left out in the cold

This act of money-grubbing douchery on DC’s part should come as no surprise.  Two years ago they went to Moore and offered to return he rights to Watchmen .  There were a few conditions though.

“They offered me the rights to Watchmen back, if I would agree to some dopey prequels and sequels,” Moore said in an interview with Wired,  “So I just told them that if they said that 10 years ago, when I asked them for that, then yeah it might have worked. But these days I don’t want Watchmen back. Certainly, I don’t want it back under those kinds of terms.”

After Moore blew them off, DC Comics co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee said, “Watchmen is the most celebrated graphic novel of all time. Rest assured, DC Comics would only revisit these iconic characters if the creative vision of any proposed new stories matched the quality set by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons nearly 25 years ago, and our first discussion on any of this would naturally be with the creators themselves.”

Then two years later DC proceeded with their dopey prequels idea and if they sell well, can the dopey sequels be far behind?  Ready for After Watchmen?

Though Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film underwhelmed and underperformed, it did well enough for some suit at Warner Brothers to greenlight the prequels and build up interest in the characters for another movie.  Warner has had no luck producing comic book movies without Batman or Superman in it.  Personally, I blame all the audiences that passed on Hellblazer, Jonah Hex and Green Lantern in favor of something else (like a good movie).

This isn’t necessary but then The Sting II without Newman and Redford and Butch and Sundance: The Early Years without Newman and Redford wasn’t necessary either.  There’s still a version of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes without Harold Melvin (who’s dead) or Teddy Pendergrass (who’s dead) or any of the other original Blue Notes,

It’s about dollar, dollar bill, y’all.  Money talks and everything else is walkin’.  Before Watchmen is a bad, bad idea whose time has come.  Alan Moore can’t stop it.   DC knows they can’t improve on the original, but make some more money from it?  That, they are willing to do.

I get it that DC has every right to use (or exploit) characters they own and they own Watchmen, not the guys who created them.   This isn’t about art, this is about commerce.  DC Comics is in the business of making money.  They don’t give their comics away for free.

Everything I needed to know about Watchmen I learned in Watchmen.   That was essential.  This is unnecessary.   What Moore and Gibbons did they did out of inspiration and love.  What  DC is doing is because they are part of a corporation and corporations are inspired by love of money.  Corporations don’t make anything original.  They make prequels, sequels, remakes, relaunches, reboots and anything else that’s been done before because it they bought it once, they might buy it again.

Before Watchmen could be good.  It might be great.  I’ll never know.   I am numb to the latest , greatest stunt the comic book corporate properties belch out.

Do not want.  Will not buy.

Related articles
 
4 Comments

Posted by on February 2, 2012 in Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

If ‘Red Tails’ Crashes Does Black Cinema Crash With It?

13 Jan

Will the fate of Black films crash and burn if "Red Tails" fails to take off?

It’s early, but already we have a strong contender for this year’s Great Black Hope.  It’s Red Tails, the George Lucas produced action flick about the Tuskegee Airmen starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Terrence Howard leading a predominantly Black cast into battle against the Nazis.  This version, directed by Anthony Hemingway and featuring a screenplay written by John Ridley (Three Kings) and Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks) is getting a boost from the president who is hosting a screening at the White House.

Lucas, a longtime power player in Hollywood found few takers for the project he’s tried to get made for 23 years.  Lucas told Jon Stewart, “I figured I could get the prints and ads paid for by the studios, and they would release it, and I showed it to all of them, and they said, “No.”

“It’s because it’s an all-black movie; there’s not major white roles in it at all. It’s one of the first all-black action pictures ever made,” Lucas said.

Everyone can decide for themselves whether or not to support Red Tails.  It opens the same week as the next Underworld installment and the new Steven Soderberg “tough chick” flick, Haywire so it’s likely Red Tails will lose the opening week war to Kate Beckinsdale flipping around in skin tight black leather unless Black folks turn out in HUGE numbers.

If they don’t it’s not likely Hollywood will care if it’s another 23 years before there’s a major action film with a primarily Black cast and crew heading it up.  In a USA Today interview, George Lucas, who has tried to get the film about the Tuskegee Airmen made said, “I realize that by accident I’ve now put the black film community at risk (with Red Tails, whose $58 million budget far exceeds typical all-black productions). I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys to break out of that (lower-budget) mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”

George Lucas and his lady-love, Melody Hobson

More Tyler Perrys isn’t a good thing if all they do is make more movies like Tyler Perry, but Lucas has his heart in the right place.

Lucas may be overstating the case that the fate of Black film hinges upon the success or failure of Red Tails, but he’s probably not wrong that if his name wasn’t attached to it, this film would never have been made in the first place.  If the guiding light of the Star Wars franchise can’t get the movies he wants to make greenlighted, who can?  Tyler Perry won’t because he only makes them cheap and aims for even cheaper laughs.  Spike Lee could, but if the emphasis in Red Tails is on dogfights in the air more than the racial politics on the ground, that’s not playing to Lee’s strengths either.

Red Tails features Black actors, a Black director and two Black screenwriters.  If Black folks don’t support this flick WHO WILL? One gripe with the film from some movie critics who have seen it is there is too much computer generated imaging in Red Tails.  This is just silly. Complaining a movie in 2012 has too many CGI effects is like complaining about the high cost of a box of popcorn.   You see CGI up the ying-yang in everything from TV commercials to feature films.  That complaint really holds no validity to me.

I don’t know whether this movie is any good or not.  I hope it is as I plan to see it on opening weekend, which is the most important weekend in a movie’s lifespan.  Not out of any sense of “obligation.”  I don’t feel any obligation to see a Perry movie and have no reluctance in letting the marketplace decide the fate of his movies.  I

I’m interested in the story and figure it might be worth the price of a ticket, but I’m confident even the movie is rotten it won’t take down every Black movie with it.  It should be judged as one single film and not carry the burden of 36 million African-Americans expectations with it.  Didn’t we learn that lesson four years ago?

The other day my wife and I had the entire theater to ourselves to see Tom Cruise outrun a sandstorm in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but we didn’t go out of any misplaced sense of racial loyalty to Paula Patton.   We just wanted to see a movie.

I do know is Black people have no excuse to complain about our stories not being told when we won’t come out to see a Red Tails.   If a piece of garbage like The Devil Inside can make over $30 million in its opening week and everyone knows it’s garbage, then how can we not give Red Tails a chance to see if it’s deserving of our support?

Hollywood responds best to movies that make money. When movies featuring Black stories with Black stars begin making some we’ll get something more than another hot Medea mess.

Related articles
 
5 Comments

Posted by on January 13, 2012 in Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

And The Rocking Chair Will Rock

08 Jan

Van Halen 2012 aka Three Old Men and a Boy

As far as attending concerts goes, I don’t get around much anymore.  I caught two last year and that was a busy year for me.  Even when it’s someone I still have fond memories for like Carlos Santana, any thought I might have of catching him live lasts up to the point where I see Santana is doing a duet with Justin Bieber and then it’s, “Eh, never mind” all over again.

When the semi-classic line-up of Van Halen kicks off a tour after the release of their first “new” album since 1984 some 28 years ago, there were be grown men weeping with joy as they furiously shred power chords and hammering riffs on air guitar as they scream their way through “And The Cradle Will Rock” one more time.

Unlike most fans I don’t have a rooting interest in the battle between the David Lee Roth vs Sammy Hagar eras of the band.   Both guys brought their own strengths and weaknesses to the show.  Roth was the consummate cock-rocker all sass, swagger and rock god sex appeal in spandex.  Who cared if he didn’t have the greatest voice and couldn’t sing a ballad if you waterboarded him.  Roth never wanted to sing silly love songs.  Like the man said,  He ain’t talkin’ ’bout love.  Which meant he was talking about drinking, partying and fucking,

Hagar could sing ballads and he could rock out too.  Just not like Diamond Dave and for that he will always be Roger Moore to Roth’s Sean Connery: a competent replacement, but never as good as the original.  Hagar was in Van Halen as long as Roth was and had even more hits, yet he’ll always be the second wife and not as loved as the first.

I got no gripe with the reconstituted back-to-the-future version of Van Halen.  Eddie gave original bassist Michael Anthony the shaft by opting to replace him with his son Wolfgang instead.   Anthony’s backing vocals was the secret weapon of the Van Halen sound and when Van Halen Reloaded hit the stage in 2007 they were still using Anthony’s taped vocals.   It’s reported that Wolfie is now filling his predecessor’s role on that score as well so presumably when they go live this time they can leave the old tapes at home.

"Who's the three geezers and the chubby chick in the first picture?"

That doesn’t mean everything old isn’t still going to be old.  Hagar told Rolling Stone the “new” album is primarily made up of material that goes back decades.  Playing this week at the Cafe Wha? club for a selected group of music critics and insiders the band blazed through a set list of songs from the classic era and ignored everything that followed 1984 (and yes, that means your shit too, Gary Cherone). “She’s the Woman”  comes off the album being released in February and it’s roots trace back to 1976 with parts of it showing up on “Mean Street.”

Hagar spilled the beans to Rolling Stone, “I heard this record is old outtakes from the old days. I mean, stuff from before I even joined the band. I heard this five years ago though. Michael Anthony was curious if his background vocals would wind up on the album. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. It’s kind of interesting. Bob Seger did it, and so did the Rolling Stones. I think it’s an interesting thing to do in your old age if you can’t come up with fresh, good stuff – or you can’t get along. Because from what I heard, they aren’t working with new material. Ed and Dave didn’t actually write new songs. They took old stuff from previous sessions, and then maybe Dave had to go in and add vocals because they just had scat vocals, or even no vocal part at all.”

Okay, so what if the new album really isn’t.  So what if five years ago Roth’s voice was pretty much shot and there’s no reason to think he can recapture past glories.   So what if Wolfgang Van Halen is just an unproven, but chubbier version of Michael Anthony?   So what if Alex Van Halen…ah, he’s the drummer.  He can probably still play drums well enough.

The main attraction of Van Halen has always been Edward Van Halen and the insane sounds he can coax and cajole out of his guitar and that’s a good enough a reason to be curious if he can still bring it live.   Eddie bounces around on stage better than any 56-year-old man who has survived a bout with lip cancer and sports a replaced hip has a right to be able to.

Neither he or Roth got fat, went bald (though Diamond Dave seems to have grown a sudden fondness for hats) and they don’t look half-dead like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  Van Halen is older and slower, but they aren’t a complete hot mess as of yet.  I wouldn’t spend a fortune for a ticket, but I’d buy one for them before I would for Chickenfoot (don’t tell me Sammy and Mike wouldn’t come running if Ed invited them back).

There ain’t nothing wrong with longing for your youth.  Some guys quit their jobs, buy a Porsche and bang a girl young enough to be their daughter to get through their little mid-life crises.   It’s probably better that the pay too much for a ticket to see the desiccated remains of a hard rock band that when in their prime seemed to have more fun that was legal.

Now if you want some real dinosaurs, just remember The Rolling Stones are threatening to tour again.   God help us all.

The Classic Coke Version of Van Halen with 100% more spandex and stuffed jeans.

Related articles
 
3 Comments

Posted by on January 8, 2012 in Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

Tags: , , , ,

Super Heroes Occupy the Summer Box Office

31 Dec

"Okay guys. Drop your weapons. The Avengers isn't until May."

I didn’t see enough films in 2011 to do a proper Top 10, but I did see four out of the five superhero flicks released last year (sorry, Green Lantern,  but as soon as I saw that first terrible trailer, I knew I wasn’t coming anywhere near a theater where you were playing and The Green Hornet starred Seth Rogan. ‘Nuff said.).    Though Super is to superhero flicks what a McNugget is to a piece of fried chicken.

This is what I thought of the 2011 crop of super hero fantasy flicks and each and every one of them will be completely forgotten once The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises open.   Unless they’re bad in which case a billion fanboys will kill themselves but only after running riot and burning down the theater.

"This armor is great. Except when I need to scratch."

THOR starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston.  Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Budget:  $150 million  Gross:  $181,030,624

Verdict:  Three hammers out of five

The first super hero of the summer was potentially the most problematic.  Thor is a big shot in the Marvel Universe, but hardly anyone who has never read the comic book has any idea who he is.  To a layman, Thor is the guy they studied one day when they covered Norse mythology and even then he was some burly redhead, not a blonde surfer hunk.   Thor seemed like a tough sell to me and if director Kenneth Branagh couldn’t pull off the scenes where Thor throws his hammer the possibility of failure seemed imminent.

I shouldn’t have worried.   When the hammer strikes, Thor is pretty bad ass.  Unfortunately, it soars in the scenes in Asgard and snores when Odin (Anthony Hopkins) kicks Thor (Chris Hemsworth) down to earth so he can take off his shirt and make Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) all hot and bothered.

Thor is two movies.  A balls-out action story and a clunky love story with some pretty lame stabs at comedy.   I remember everything about the battle between Thor and the Frost Giants and have forgotten nearly everything  when he’s earthbound.   There’s an okay battle with The Destoryer after Loki (Tom Hiddleston) sends him  to finish off the powerless God of Thunder and a gratuitous cameo by Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and a lot of scenes of Hemsworth and Portman sniffing each other’s butts like two dogs in heat.

Okay, not really, but it would be more interesting if they had than all the yakking they do about nothing.  Branagh  made his bones directing Shakespeare stories and I wish he would have cut back some of the dialogue and exposition and pumped up more scenes of Thor hitting things with his hammer.

I liked Thor, but I didn’t love Thor.  Tom Hiddleston made Loki both interesting and surprisingly sympathetic.  I kind of was on his side for a while because Hemsworth played Thor as an arrogant, swaggering prick for most of the movie and was a bit more believable than his “these mortals are worth fighting for” change of heart of the last 30 minutes.    As the battling siblings Hemsworth and Hiddleston are perfectly cast  and Hopkins makes a sufficiently omnipotent Odin.  I didn’t even mind Idris Elba as Heimdall, but if all the clunky scenes on Earth with Thor and Portman were taken out, nothing would be lost by the omission..  Since Marvel had to give Thor a reason to come back to earth to appear in The Avengers, the prospect or a future booty call as motivation.

 

“Hey Peggy. My shirt come back from the cleaners yet?”

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER   Starring Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayley (sigh) Atwell, Stanley Tucci, Samuel L. Jackson.  Directed by Joe Johnston

Budget: $140 million Gross:  $176,654,505

Verdict:  Four shields out of five.

You have to give director Joe Johnston and the screenwriters credit.  They took perhaps the corniest superhero in the world –a dude wrapped in the flag—and told his entire origin in a way that was completely involving.    There’s a lot of set-up with Steve Rogers before you ever get a chance to see Captain America throw his might shield , but I was never bored by the decision to take the time to establish why there was a need for a super solider and how Captain America had to grow into the role.

Chris Evans as the Human Torch was supposedly the best thing about the two Fantastic Four movies I have successfully avoided watching and if this third bite of the apple had tanked his next stop might be in some terrible police procedural  on CBS.  He nails both Rogers and Captain America and like Christopher Reeves as Superman and Clark Kent, it’s very important to get both the super hero and the secret identity right.

Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci add veteran gravitas to the essentially silly concept and Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull is the best he’s been since Agent Smith (and much better than he was hiding behind a Guy Fawkes mask in V For Vendetta).    The introduction of The Howling Commandos (minus Nick Fury as Sgt. Fury) didn’t do much for me and Bucky getting greased so fast was a blink and you’ll miss it moment, but I bet he’ll return for the inevitable sequel.

"^Yoo hoo, Captain. I found your shirt."

The revelation was Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Cap’s soon-to-be-long-lost-love interest.   I’d never seen Atwell in anything prior to Captain America, but every time she’s on the screen is a homina homina homina moment.    She’s the kind of woman that makes me happy to be a straight man.  If DC ever wants to get a Wonder Woman movie made, cast Atwell and I’m there on opening night and I don’t even like Wonder Woman.   Yeah, her British accent is veddy thick, but Warner Brothers should lock her up in a contract and then lock her away in a room to watch a marathon of House until she can conceal her accent as well as Hugh Laurie.

"Did you just see the Golden Gate Bridge go lfying by?"

X-MEN:  1st Class  starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender,  Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne.  Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Budget: $160 million Gross:  $146,408,305

Verdict: Three and ½ “X’s” out of five

This is the Marvel super hero movie that falls outside of the control of the Mighty Marvel Studios, but harkens back to than the preceding X-Men movies and Kick-Ass too (but not Wolverine ‘cause that movie never happened).

Bryan Singer directed the first two X-Men films, abandoned X-Men: The Last Stand to direct Superman Returns, which may be why both underwhelmed me so, but returned to produce 1st Class.  Matthew Vaughn directed it and fresh off of the dark, but hilarious send-up of super heroes, Kick-Ass, turned in a movie with a lot of serious intentions going on.

When the idea was floated for a solo Magneto movie, nobody could conceive how 72-year-old Ian McKellen could carry a movie about a mutant super villain.   After watching Michael Fassbender  do Magneto as a relentless Nazi-hunter, I could totally buy it for two hours in the dark.

James McAvoy is just okay as Charles Xavier.  Nothing more and nothing less.  I can find a dozen more charismatic actors that could have stuck the landing better.   McKellen and Patrick Stewart inhabit the yin-yang of Magneto and Xavier so thoroughly, but McAvoy is pretty drab compared to Fassbender who takes Magneto and turns him into a screen test for the replacement of Daniel Craig when he gets too craggy to play James Bond (any minute now).

Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique is pretty, sexy and more interesting in her scenes with Fassbender than McAvoy (whom the more I think about his performance the more I dislike it).  The rest of the first class of X-Men are mix-and-match, though the guy who plays The Beast is light years ahead of Kelsey Grammer’s  version in The Last Stand.

Hunger games? I can think of some games I'm hungry to play.

The movie is good, but it’s not a lot of fun even with the Hugh Jackman cameo.   It takes itself very seriously in a way a parody like Kick-Ass doesn’t try to be.   I give Vaughn credit for taking things in a completely different direction from his previous movie.   First Class was popular with the critics pulling down a 87percent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes compared to 79 percent for Captain America and Thor’s 77 percent, but domestically it didn’t recoup its budget, though it did bring in over $355 million worldwide.   I guess  after the American non-comic book audience realized there was no Wolverine and an all-new cast of X-Men, they weren’t feeling the love.

"Come see my movie or I'll beat you to death."

SUPER  starring Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon: directed by James Gunn

Budget:  $2.5 million Gross:  $324,138

Verdict:  Two and a half pipe wrenches out of five

Super qualifies as a super hero movie in the same way Kick-Ass qualifies as one:  Just barely   Iit’s just as violent and even more graphic as anything in Kick-Ass.  But unlike Matthew Vaughn,  James Gunn doesn’t want anyone to laugh at the sad sack Crimson Bolt because  Rainn Wilson plays him as a disturbed psychopath who is no better than the criminals he’s beating up.

I’m no fan of Wilson.  Never watched The Office, but if he’s as big a creep there as he is here that was the right call.  Wilson plays Frank, a schlub fry cook whose wife (Liv Tyler) is seduced and strung out on heroin by the nefarious Jacques (Kevin Bacon).  Unable to free her by conventional means since the police are always useless in these kind of films, he gets divine inspiration to become a costumed vigilante.

No super powers?  No problem.  As the Crimson Bolt, Frank hunkers down by a dumpster and waits to brain drug dealers and cretins who jump the line at movies with a big honkin’ pipe wrench while screaming his motto, “SHUT UP CRIME!”  It’s not exactly going for realism.

Along the way he picks up an unwanted sidekick, Libby, a comic book geek girl, (Ellen Page) who turns out even more of a hard core crazy than Frank is as she creates her own costume and anoints herself “Boltie.”  Soon she’s sitting next to Frank behind dumpsters waiting to commit acts of ultra-violence and extremely  discomforting sexuality.

How extreme?  Let’s just say if you ever wondered what it would look like if a horny Robin raped Batman, you won’t have to wonder again.  This is quite a rape-y movie.  Wilson’s inspiration to try super-heroing comes via tentacle rape.  Bacon rapes Tyler.  Page rapes Wilson.  Rape. Murder. More rape.  James Gunn likes rape.

This was a hard movie to figure out.  Is it supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek send-up of superheroes, a graphic violent and profane put down of the genre, a gross-out black comedy or none of those things?  It’s hard to tell.  Wilson has limited range as an leading man and Gunn’s script is too muddled to make his point.  Even at 96 minutes, Super feels long . Boltie/Libby is twisted as a pretzel and Page has a lot of fun with the role.  It’s as far as she can get from Inception or Juno which is what probably appealed to her.  That, and the chance to moan, “It’s all gooshy.”

I only wish I could have had as much fun with Super.   It’s got a nasty streak mixed in with the humorous aspects, but even though I like strange cinema as much as the next freak, I can’t totally recommend this one.  It’s worth watching once to judge for yourself, but it’s numerous flaws and scattered story ultimately don’t engage.

Happy New Year.  2012 is going to be a huge year for super heroes if you like that sort of thing.  If you don’t there’s always the second part of Twilight: Breaking Dawn.

Crazy things come in small packages.

Related articles
 
Leave a comment

Posted by on December 31, 2011 in Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

CUT! Actors that need to take a nice long break.

25 Dec

The only good argument against gay marriage

Merry Christmas, y’all, from The Domino Theory.   What did you get me?

Not a damn thing, huh?  That’s the same thing you get me every year!

Fine.  Be that way then.  If you’re going to be like that, I’m going to hand out a few lumps of coal to some actors I wish would go away.   I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.  Just disappear so I can go back to the multiplex without any of them messing up my movie-going experience.

Adam Sandler: I don’t get why anyone thinks he’s funny.  If  you find bodily functions and kicks to the crotch hilarious, he’s The Man.  Otherwise, the fact such an underwhelming nebbish has any sort of career is worthy of a congressional investigation.

Chris Rock: Brilliant on stage. Bombs on film.  Isn’t it time to record another comedy album?  Pretty please with sugar on top?

Jennifer Aniston: Yes, you’re pretty. No, you can’t act so please just go away…

Katherine Heigl: … and take her with you…

Kevin James: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Al Pacino: This hurts, but Al doesn’t even try to act anymore. He just yells, screams, chews up the scenery and says, “where’s my check?”

Didn't we use to be somebody?

Robert DeNiro: Remember when a new DeNiro movie meant something? Bobby D hasn’t made one of those in a looooong time.  There’s always hope DeNiro will stop wasting his talent on films unworthy of it, but if he doesn’t seem to care, I probably shouldn’t either.

Ben Stiller: Can a human being be even less funny than Adam Sandler, but almost as successful?  Yes, and Stiller proves it. The only Ben Stiller movie in my DVD collection is Tropic Thunder where two supposed comedians, Stiller and Jack Black, were shown up by Robert Downey, Jr.  AND Tom Cruise.  That does take some talent and being one of most unfunny actors working has made Stiller a millionaire. Life’s not fair.

"Damn, I'm hot."

Cameron Diaz:  She’s a great actress!  (No, she’s not!)  She’s a raving beauty!  (Only if you’ve never seen a beautiful woman.)  She’s got a killer body!  (If you’re hot for girls built like boys.)  She’s a total mystery to me! (Totally.)

Zoe Saldana:  Something about Zoe bugs me.  It might be that she keeps appearing in action flicks (The Losers, Colombiana), but is so skinny and frail it stretches logic to believe she could regularly punch out grown-ass men.  It could be that I know she’s attractive, but she never comes off as approachable or even someone I want to pull for.  What it might be is every time I see Saldana in a movie no matter what the film is about she’s always–ALWAYS–cast as the Black girlfriend of the non-Black hero (Avatar, The Losers, Death At a Funeral, Takers, Star Trek).  How does she make two movies with Idris Elba and dodge him in both?  Is it written in her contract?

Eddie Murphy: Went soft. Hasn’t been funny for years. He’s chasing checks just like Pacino and DeNiro and there’s no shame in Eddie’s game.  He’ll be the first to admit he’s been cranking out crap like Norbit and Daddy Day Care.  I applaud his candor.  I avoid his movies.

"Kneel before Zod!"

Angelina Jolie: Don’t know why, but I just don’t dig her. Maybe it’s that “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” jive being shoved up my nose?  I also don’t dig bony ass babes whose lips are bigger than their rib cages.  Stop adopting kids from all around the world long enough to pound down a sandwich.  Or two.  Or three.

Shia LaBeouf:  I have a theory the brilliant minds in Hollywood get it in their heads that certain actors/actresses are the greatest thing since sliced bread and if they just keep putting them in movies over and over eventually YOU. WILL. LOVE. THEM.

This is the only reason I can come up for the continued existence of Shia LaBeouf.

Ryan Reynolds:Beefcake gets no duller or dumber than this. Reynolds possess A-list looks sabotaged by his D list talent.  He killed the Blade movies, desecrated Deadpool and Green Lantern is a stone cold, leadpipe lock for one of the worst movies of the year.  Stop this guy before he kills another superhero franchise.

Meryl Streep: Yeah, I said it. Since when is changing accents in every movie considered great acting?   One minute Meryl’s nailed a French accent or an English accent or a Polish accent or a German accent and the next the Academy Awards nominations automatically follow. If Streep rolls over in the morning and cuts a loud fart, there’s a movie critic nearby applauding her authenticity.

"Overrated? Me? Now that is funny."

She is always watchable, but her movies usually aren’t. Streep has had more great performances than great movies.

When Meryl Streep can nail a Black accent and play Madea , I’ll be impressed.

Speaking of Madea…

Tyler Perry was named by Forbes magazine as the biggest moneymaker in Hollywood.  Bigger than Cruise or DiCaprio or Depp.  I supposed I should be impressed the most profitable man in the biz is a Black man from Atlanta.

Porn is profitable. That doesn’t make it good.

The question was actors I wish would go away. I don’t consider Tyler Perry any sort of actor. It takes no acting ability to put on a fat suit, glasses and a wig and turn yourself into a Bible-thumping, gun waving, full of piss and vinegar big Black mama.

All it takes is pandering to stereotypes and the lowest common denominator of your target audience. No acting ability required. All you need to be is a pandering hack.

Perry is very successful at what he does and it’s really kind of sad what he does is make lots of money from making terrible movies.

"I make 'em cheap and they make me rich."

 
8 Comments

Posted by on December 25, 2011 in Music. Movies. Media. More., Rantology

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Frank Miller’s Unholy Mess

17 Nov

That's right comic book geeks. I get the ladies!

I have to say I haven’t given Frank Miller much more than a passing thought in 17 years.  I read most of tAll-Star Batman & Robin which seemed to be written as a twisted parody of his own The Dark Knight Returns and seemed to ask, “What if the Caped Crusader were crazier than any bad guy he fought?”    I liked Robert Rodriguez’s take on Miller’s Sin City as perhaps the most faithful adaptation of a comic book ever put on film.  Yet to say I’ve actually given any serious thought about Miller, I’d have to say I haven’t I reviewed the craven cash-grab that was Spawn/Batman for The Comics Journal in 1994.

Miller oozed back into my consciousness a few months ago with the release of his long-delayed Holy Terror, where The Fixer, a Batman stand-in (who was Batman before DC Comics decided they didn’t want one of their signature characters torturing and murdering Al Qaeda terrorists) takes bloody revenge against the perpetrators of 9/11.  I haven’t read Holy Terror and at a whopping $30 for the hardcover have no intentions of doing so and particularly not when it’s been on the receiving end of some of the worst reviews of Miller’s career.

Other comic writers couldn’t resist piling on as Grant Morrison did when he said, “Batman vs. Al Qaeda! It might as well be Bin Laden vs. King Kong! Or how about the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter! For all the good it’s likely to do. Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. I’d be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the Army and, with a howl of undying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life and limb ‘vs’ Al Qaeda.”

One sure-fire way to stand up for your Islamic bitch slap of a book is to pick a fight and that’s what Miller did.  He took to his blog and ripped into the Occupy Wall Street protestors calling them “losers,” “pond scum” and “nothing but a pack of louts, thieves and rapists.”

The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

Batman needs his dirty mouth washed out with Bat-soap.

“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” — HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached – is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage — both politically and physically — every which way they can find. 

Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.

Maybe, between bouts of self-pity and all the other tasty tidbits of narcissism you’ve been served up in your sheltered, comfy little worlds, you’ve heard terms like al-Qaeda and Islamicism.

And this enemy of mine — not of yours, apparently – must be getting a dark chuckle, if not an outright horselaugh – out of your vain, childish, self-destructive spectacle.

In the name of decency, go home to your parents, you losers. Go back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft. [sic]

Or better yet, enlist for the real thing. Maybe our military could whip some of you into shape.

When did the guy who wrote 300 start sounding like Pamela Geller?   When did he become an ardent Islamophobe?

What are you?  Retarded?  He’s the goddamn Frank Miller!

Anyone who’s never heard of Miller has no reason to care what he has to say about Occupy Wall Street but it’s just another step in Miller’s devolution from a gifted artist and writer into a demented loon telling those darn kids to get off his yawn.

Miller is behind great stuff like his first run on Daredevil, his terrific return with Born Again,
The Dark Knight Returns, Hard Boiled with Geoff Darrow’s elaborate art and Batman: Year One.  On any short list of the greatest talents ever to work in the comic medium,  Miller’s name must be in the Top Ten.

Wonder what happened to that guy?  Seems like he crawled into a bottle of gin and crawled back out as “Mickey Spillane’s Frank Miller” and started babbling about dames, booze and punks.

If Miller hates and fears Muslim Jihadists he’s entitled to be as paranoid as he wants.  You have to divorce his body of work from his repellent personality and bigoted beliefs.  Otherwise you’re going to find it difficult to support a talented, but otherwise awful human being.

Miller once wrote about living in New York City, “You gotta take the good with the bad and sometimes there’s an awful lot of bad.”

Did he know he was talking about himself as well?

Holy Terror? More like an ungodly mess.

Related articles
 
1 Comment

Posted by on November 17, 2011 in Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

George Benson Plays and Sings (and quite well, thank you)

11 Nov

Still a hell of a guitar player when he plays guitar

At some point George Benson morphed from a guitarist who occasionally sang into a singer who occasionally played guitar. Benson’s Breezin’ (Warner Bros, 1976) launched his career trajectory to new heights based upon “This Masquerade,” his only vocal turn on the album.

But oh, what a vocal “This Masquerade” was. It propelled Breezin’ to Number One on the pop charts and the album won multiple Grammys, including Record of the Year, and his recording formula was set for the next 20 years. The follow-up, In Flight (Warner Bros, 1977) featured Benson’s soulful tenor vocals on four of the six tracks and, while In Flight didn’t boast a song as memorable as “This Masquerade,” his guitar was still the musical centerpiece of the music.

Jazz aficionados rightly scratched their heads as Benson dove headlong into pop music and, by the time of 1984′s 20/20 (Warner Bros, 1984), the guitar had virtually disappeared in a pea soup of limp arrangements, synthesizers and syndrums, the quintessential instrument that dates ’80s records. The nadir of Benson’s career might be Irreplaceable (GRP, 2004) which made a bid for hip-hop radio through sincere, but contrived tunes such as “Cell Phone,” where Benson tried to place a call to heaven on the title device (no joke).

As a vocalist, Benson has proven to be at his best when the material is as strong as his 63 year old voice, and Guitar Man is a splendid showcase for it. The Beatles and Benson get along very well together (reference The Other Side of Abbey Road (A&M, 1969) for further evidence), as his skilled fingers strum the six strings on a lush interpretation of “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” The mood of this recording is lights down low, slow dance and romance music. This is a record made by a grown-up for grown-ups. Benson has no need to make albums with one eye on the pop charts anymore. Recognizing his reign there is over, he can put his emphasis simply on playing and singing whatever he feels like.

Despite its title, Guitar Man doesn’t feature a lot of frenzied jamming and high-flying solos, but Benson doesn’t have to hammer with pyrotechnics. When he’s on his game, as he is whether he’s crooning Stevie Wonder‘s “My Cherie Amour” or gently coaxing the notes out of his guitar on John Coltrane‘s “Naima,” it’s a demonstration of an artist confidently allowing the music to speak for itself.

Whether he’s swinging on “Tequila,” with keyboardist Joe Sample, drummer Harvey Mason, and bassist Ben Williams, loping through “Don’t Know Why,” or straight-up crooning on “My One and Only Love,” Benson’s sense of taste, phrasing and ability to swing remain undiminished by time. Ably assisted by an accomplished assemblage of musicians, this is one of the best albums of the year. Just don’t call it a comeback. George Benson is still The Guitar Man and even when it seemed he had forgotten for awhile, he always was.

Track Listing:Tenderly; I Want To Hold Your Hand; My Cherie Amour; Naima; Tequila; Don’t Know Why; The Lady In My Life; My One and Only Love; Paper Moon; Danny Boy; Since I Fell For You; Fingerlero.

Personnel: George Benson: guitar, vocals; David Garfield: piano, keyboards, rhythm arrangement (2-8, 11, 12); Paul Jackson, Jr.: rhythm guitar (2); Ray Fuller: rhythm guitar (2); Freddie Washington: bass (2); Oscar Seaton, Jr. (2): drums; Charlie Bishart: violin, viola (2, 7); Dan Higgins: flute, alto flute, clarinet (2); Oscar Castro-Neves: orchestral arrangement (2); Ben Williams: bass (3-5, 7-9, 12); Harvey Mason: drums (3-5, 7-9, 12); Lenny Castro: percussion (3, 5, 6, 12); Joe Sample: piano (5, 8, 9, 12); Chris Walden: keyboards, string arrangement (7).

This review originally appeared in All About Jazz

 
2 Comments

Posted by on November 11, 2011 in Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

The (Not So) Great Lost Paul Hardcastle Review

15 Oct

A guy with one good idea he's run into the ground

Whenever you write a review of an album, typically the editor checks it for spelling and punctuation errors, makes sure it’s formatted correctly and that it fits with the publication’s internal style guide.  99 percent of these reviews sail through without a problem.

Then there’s the one percent like this one.

The editor of All About Jazz kicked this review of Paul Hardcastle’s new album back to me with a lengthy grocery list of reasons for doing so.   Among the more interesting ones were “this kind of verbiage simply sounds like a writer scoring points off the artist, who they clearly don’t like” and the review “doesn’t reflect well on either yourself or AAJ.”

Every writer who has ever submitted their work to an editor occasionally disagrees with editorial decisions.   Creative people have their conflicts.   The editor suggested I rewrite the review.  I declined having figured I had already devoted enough time to a musician I have no strong feelings for and upon going back to the review, I found it acceptable.  My opinion is admittedly biased, but I disagreed with the editor and wrote back to tell him so.

It’s evident to me we don’t agree on the Paul Hardcastle review.  I went back and gave it another reading.   Your comment about me trying to  “score points on the artist”  is not how I see it at all.

This is a review about a guy who hasn’t had an original idea in 26 years.  If I wanted to “score points” I’d call him Paul Hackcastle, not Paul Hardcastle.   That is scoring points.  That is criticizing the music, not the man.   I didn’t do that.  You’re right that I don’t much like Hardcastle, but I believe I gave valid reasons in the review.

It’s your call to run the review or reject it.   As a freelancer I’m well aware what a writer thinks is perfectly acceptable, the editor may say, “Sorry.  Not so much.”

I’ve spent all the time on Paul Hardcastle 6 I intend to.   If I wanted to write it for my blog I would have posted it there.   I wrote it for AAJ.   If you don’t feel it’s up to AAJ standards, then you don’t have to run it.

However, your criticism that it “doesn’t reflect well on either yourself or AAJ”  reads like you’re scoring points on me.

As AAJ’s editor you’re well qualified to reflect upon what doesn’t reflect well on AAJ.   I’m the person who can best assess what doesn’t reflect well on me.

He responded, but bottom line is we disagreed.  It happens.  He’s the editor.  I’m the contributor.  The final word is always his so there’s no point in arguing and ending a relationship both parties have found mutually beneficial until now.  I get free music.  They get reviews of the music.  It’s a win-win and I’m not going to walk away from a five-year professional relationship over a guy like Hardcastle who keeps endlessly recycling the one or two ideas he had 20 years ago. 

Maybe he is a hack, but why jeopardize my access for him?

I did however change my mind.  I figured since I wrote the review, somebody might want to read it besides myself and the editor.

So here’s the (not so) Great Lost Paul Hardcastle review. that was too strong for All About Jazz.

The only thing more generic than the cover is the music.

What’s the difference between a Paul Hardcastle solo album and his Jazzmasters side project ? Okay, that’s a trick question. There is no discernible difference as one project sounds exactly like the other. The music is interchangeable and indistinguishable between the two as the signature sound of Hardcastle’s laid back soundscapes haven’t changed much from his mid-Eighties hits, “Rain Forest” and “19,” both of which show up here in remixed form.

The chill sub-genre leans heavily on plenty of synthesizers, airy vocals, some random sax solos with a some stray flutes and what sounds like vibes (but probably isn’t). It’s too fast for New Age but too colorless to be called jazz, Hardcastle VI lacks the heart or soul to be thought of as little more than fast-food music; mass produced with enough flavor that it tastes good, but not enough to be memorable.

Which isn’t to say this is necessarily bad. Fast food can taste pretty good if you’re in the mood for it and the “Rainforest/What’s Going On” mash-up of Hardcastle’s “Rainforest” and “19″ with a sample of {{Marvin Gaye}}’s activist anthem, “What’s Going On?” deserves points for audacity. Depending upon how open the listener’s mind is, this is either an interesting idea or a total travesty. Either way, Hardcastle deserves credit for blending two totally conflicting styles in one pretty passable package.

“Night Time Hustle” and ” Easy Come Easy Go” pick up the pace to the point that if you’re not careful you might actually try to get up and dance. Though Hardcastle is often associated with dancing, whenever Hardcastle VI risks prompting a response other than listening passively another humdrum track featuring Becki Biggins’ vapid vocals wobbles in until the urge passes.

The fans of the Paul Hardcastle formula will welcome the latest installment in what seems like the longest single album in recorded history. It might take only the most hardcore Hardcastle devotee to discern the deviation between Hardcastle VI and the straight line that runs to his eponymous debut some 26 years earlier. For others they may well wonder how this bloodless, passionless music got classified as any sort of jazz.

 
32 Comments

Posted by on October 15, 2011 in It's My Life, Music. Movies. Media. More.

 

Tags: , , , ,

← Older posts
 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 580 other followers